23Synonyms found for rigmarole

Word Origin & History

rigmarole 1736, "a long, rambling discourse," from an altered, Kentish colloquial survival of ragman roll "long list or catalogue" (1523), in M.E. a long roll of verses descriptive of personal characters, used in a medieval game of chance called Rageman, perhaps from Anglo-Fr. Ragemon le bon "Ragemon the good," which was the heading on one set of the verses, referring to a character by that name. Sense transferred to "foolish activity or commotion" c.1955, but known orally from 1930s.

Example Sentences for rigmarole

The beauty of this match was its intensity without rigmarole or ritual.

Take the rigmarole it puts users through when they wish to close an account.

Then there was all the rigmarole involving street names and zip codes.

Take oil pricing, a complex statist rigmarole that had been moving from the hands of government to those of a regulator.

The government's plan to perpetuate itself in office, via the traditional electoral rigmarole, is likely to go ahead.

If one has a connecting flight, you still have to through the customs rigmarole.

Some darn good people left because they didn't want to go through this whole rigmarole.